Call to Decision

Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and other Christian Leaders Invite Muslims to Share "Common Love for God"

LTRP Note: The Christian Post article below is regarding a response by a significant number of evangelical leaders who have said that Christians and Muslims need to come together because they worship a common God. The response is to a document by Muslim leaders titled "A Common Word Between Us and You" Some of those who signed the Christian response are Rick Warren, Brian McLaren, Bill Hybels, Leith Anderson and many others. One thing most of the signers have in common, and that is their propensity towards contemplative and/or emerging spiritualities.

By Ethan Cole
Christian Post Reporter

Christian leaders across denominational lines responded to the unprecedented open letter signed last month by 138 representative Muslim leaders with their own letter, calling on the two Abrahamic faiths to love God and neighbors together.

Over 100 theologians, ministry leaders, and prominent pastors have thus far signed the response letter issued by the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

Signers include Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners; Rick Warren, founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church; John Stott, rector emeritus of All Souls Church in London; and Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals....

Christian leaders urged for an interfaith dialogue that moves beyond "polite" ecumenical talks between selected leaders. Instead, leaders of both faiths should hold dialogues to build relations that will "reshape" the two communities to "genuinely reflect our common love for God and for one another," the Christian letter state. Click here to read the entire Christian Post article.

The entire "Christian Response" is posted on the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Click here. or

http://www.yale.edu/faith/abou-commonword.htm complete very long list of signers
Signers include:
Rick Warren (Southern Baptist, Sr. pastor Saddleback)
Bill Hybels (Willow Creek Association)
Leith Anderson (head of NAE and Wooddale Church)
Northwest University (Washington, AOG)
Fuller Seminary
Biola University
Northwest University
David Yonggi Cho (Korea)
Bethel College
Bethel University
Makoto Fujimura, Artist (Focus on the Family, The Truth Project)
YWAM
Eastern Mennonite Mission
Wheaton College
Emergent Village
Assemblies of God
First Presbyterian- Vintage Faith Church, Santa Cruz, CA
World Vision
Taylor University
ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America)
Brian McLaren
Christianity Today
The Christian Century

Tyndale Seminary
Vineyard USA
Robert Schuller (Crystal Cathedral)
Regent College (BC)
The Navigators
Jim Wallis (Sojourners)

Contemplative Proponent J. P. Moreland Says Christians Too Committed to the Bible
According to a Christianity Today article, Biola University professor J.P. Moreland says evangelical Christians are too committed to the Bible. His talk at a recent Evangelical Theology Society meeting was titled "How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What Can Be Done About It." Quoting Moreland, the article states:

"In the actual practices of the Evangelical community in North America, there is an over-commitment to Scripture in a way that is false, irrational, and harmful to the cause of Christ," he [Moreland] said. "And it has produced a mean-spiritedness among the over-committed that is a grotesque and often ignorant distortion of discipleship unto the Lord Jesus." The problem, he said, is "the idea that the Bible is the sole source of knowledge of God, morality, and a host of related important items. Accordingly, the Bible is taken to be the sole authority for faith and practice."

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